1. Architecture always hides something
This accusation is similar to the oft-repeated saying that "God is in
the details", meaning that there is something invisible in the
working-out of every project.

Visiting a work of architecture is very much a question of exploring
and finding out. The day we visited the flat we spent the whole time
touching one material or other, contrasting the textures, opening what was
closed or sliding away whatever was overlapping something else.

However, the flat we were exploring that day contained something more.

The idea of inhabiting is associated with private life, with a story
that is secret, with the signs of life and with its lack transformed into
memory. The story of a house is therefore the story of its concealments as
well as its disclosures, of what we see in it and what is not allowed to
be seen. For the same reasons, certain aspects of buildings are made
"manifestly hidden".

2. What was there before?
This is a recurring question when we visit a building. We ask ourselves
what happened there before the walls were built, before the spaces were
cut up, before the paths were pushed through and the envelope of the
spaces was made.

In this case it is easy to imagine. There would have been columns that
stood on the ground and went through ceilings, that stood in the way and
attracted the eye. Dust would have piled up beside them and we would have
put down our cases in order to rest, wait and not get in the way. This may
have been the beginning of everything, the beginning of a growing store of
experiences and stories where eventually a few packets would appear: the
home, that is to say looking and space, route and resting, is now
structured around them. It is not for nothing that the prominent wrappings
which structure the space like linings are also where objects and bodies
are put. They give shape to places like niches and interwoven directions.

3. But what is interesting about modern homes, which this one is, are
the ghosts
Who washes themselves in the basin in the hall of that home on the
outskirts of Paris? Who is the blurred figure behind the stair-screen of
that home on a slope in Brno? Who is looking through the many openings
that look into the living room in that home in Prague?

Who or what is pushing that curved partition from behind? Why is this
wall shrinking and folding? What is happening in there?

In any case, some of the questions being asked today as we visit the
flat had already been sketched out there before the refurbishment. The
bulging wall of the façade or the globe-space of the staircase are too
much there not to make their presence felt.

4. So whose side are you on?
Soon after entering the flat, the group of architects who had come to poke
around dispersed, each in a different direction. One was heard knocking to
guess what material had been used, others tried to trigger whatever latch
it was that prevented them seeing what was inside that wall and was not
allowing them through.

I heard laughter too... I myself was chasing some muted spaces, asking
myself what was behind all this. I even heard people, I couldn’t see
where, asking me "So whose side are you on?"

No, we must not get confused, as always in these houses where the
design shows the way, prevents one passing or invites one in without
having asked permission, someone will always shout "Where are
you?". The only houses that interest me are things children get up
to, homes that play.